Bendy, rolled up, flexible displays - concept or reality?

May 18, 2016

In this blog we take a look at three inspirational videos featuring visions on how flexible displays will change our lives and ask whether they will remain as concept designs or will technology actually help to turn them into reality.

A few years ago, the media had picked up on what would shortly become a disruptive force within the arena of displays. Some of the big consumer electronics companies have been busy developing concept designs of what is possible with displays that can be flexed.

In this first video Samsung shows its perspective on how flexible displays will bring surfaces to life and offer people seamless experiences both at the workplace and at home.

In this second video, LG explores how displays will break away from the limits of form – a flexible OLED that can be activated as a table display, with touchscreen; from wearables to OLED dashboards for the automotive sector; rollable and foldable screens for architects. The possibilities are endless:

In January of this year, Panasonic unveiled a prototype for a transparent LCD. The company sees the display being used either as a windowpane, or as streaming live news or even showing mood-appropriate scenes.

Realising the vision for displays that can be flexed around any object

At FlexEnable, we are also driven by the vision to enable active surfaces in our lives: in our homes, our cars and even on our bodies. While the above inspiring videos are only concepts today, flexible electronics technology is already paving the way for flexible displays and sensors that will bring these designs to life. And this means that that almost any surface imaginable can be activated to become part of the connected life vision.

We have already demonstrated that our industrially-proven, flexible transistor technology platform can be used for the manufacture of conformable organic LCD (OLCD) and flexible AMOLED displays. The processes we have developed are compatible with existing display manufacturing lines and we are getting ever closer to bringing this ground-breaking technology into mass production and help companies realise their visions. At the same time we have also demonstrated the applications of flexible displays for wearables as well as automotive.

The applications of flexible OLCD and OLED aren’t just confined to the examples in the blog – if you have a unique vision, why not get in touch – info@flexenable.com.